Much of Europe is currently suffering under yet another heatwave. New temperature records are being set regularly with parts of Italy predicted to hit 480C. In Greece thousands have been evacuated in the face of forest fires around Athens, while across Europe we are hearing stories of deaths due to the extreme temperatures.
Ireland has been, and continues to be, a laggard on climate action. Despite the government spin claiming our emissions dropped by 1.9% last year the reality is that figure excludes aviation and would still require annual reductions of over 12% per year for the next 3 years just to meet the already inadequate targets in the Climate Action Plan.
On our current trajectory we are nowhere near achieving this.
The government, including the Green Party, are committed to a business-as-usual approach, even as we see more evidence of the damage already being inflicted by climate change. They oppose even basic measures like stopping new fossil fuel infrastructure or new energy guzzling data centres.
They don’t want to listen or change; we will have to make them.
Now is the time to get active and fight for the radical action we need to prevent even more climate chaos in the future.
Business as usual just won’t cut it. We need to get organised and force the government to take action. We need feet on the street and People Power to get the action and change we urgently need.
At a minimum we should demand:
- Free and frequent public transport.
- State funded retrofitting of homes – not just grants that leave it unaffordable to those most in need.
- An end to fossil fuel extraction and a ban on new fossil fuel infrastructure – including data centres.
The government could do all this in the morning, it is up to us to make them.
